FAFSA efc question, need help.

Paying for College
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I just filled my fafsa and the estimate of money I will get is $6,500 in loans and $2,200 in pell grant.
I have a question regarding this that maybe someone could answer for me.</p>

<p>I am very worried about financial aid for next year because I am transferring schools and my tuition and costs will be almost double what I am paying now and I don't know if I can even transfer if I can't afford it.</p>

<p>I know that the highest someone can get in pell grant is $5,500. My expected family contribution on fafsa is $3,300. I don't understand how this can be.
My family makes about $30,000 combined a year. They can barely afford rent and they have a teenager to raise so they can't help me pay for school at all.
I have already completed a year of college and it wasn't that difficult because I was able to afford tuition and housing with the loans and the pell grant and I supported myself with my job but next year is going to be really difficult for me because I will have a lot more expenses for school.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any advice for me? Is there a possibility that I could be filling out my Fafsa wrong? A friend of mine gets the entire $5,500 in pell grant and her parents make the same amount of money as mine.
I know there is a lot of different factors that goes into the fafsa but does it sound like maybe I filled it out wrong?
My parents can't help me at all, is there someway I can change my expected family contribution?</p>

<p>If anyone has any advice that would be really helpful.</p>

<p>Also, if I want to take out extra loans, how can I do that?
I don't have credit and my parents don't have good credit either because they recently went bankrupt so they wouldn't be able to co-sign for me.
Is there any loans I can take out besides the government loans that I am taking out that have a low interest rate and don't require a co-signer? </p>

<p>If anyone knows of any scholarships I could apply to also that would be great.
I've applied to a bunch on fastweb and cappex but I never seem to win anything because I'm sure there is a great deal of people who apply to those.</p>

<p>Any financial help would be great and I would really appreciate your help.</p>

<p>Thank you very much!! :)</p>

2

<p>You could fill it out by hand (takes approx 20 minutes) and compare it with the number you received. As a dependent student you should only need pages 9-10 and worksheets on pages 17-20. See link below:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>P.S. As far as scholarships go, you should check the school you are transferring to. Many have a link to scholarships that may be available to attending students.</p>

3

<p>Your EFC sounds high for a family of 4, but maybe your parents have assets???</p>

<p>Anyway…as to your question about transferring. To which school? Most schools don’t give much aid to transfers so you might only get a loan and the Pell grant. </p>

<p>Is there a school that you can commute to?</p>

4

<p>How are your grades and score?</p>

<p>In other posts you talk about attending an online school and the fact that your family will be moving.</p>

<p>Have you considered applying to schools where you can live and perhaps get good aid?</p>